To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.
China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world. (emphasis mine)
—How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
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Although it still generates the majority of its electricity from coal, “since 1990, Denmark has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent. Over the same time frame, Danish energy consumption has stayed constant and Denmark’s gross domestic product has grown by more than 40 percent. Denmark is the most energy efficient country in the E.U.; due to carbon pricing, through energy taxes, carbon taxes, the ‘cap and trade’ system, strict building codes and energy labeling programs. Renewable resources currently supply almost 30 percent of Denmark’s electricity. Wind power is the largest source of renewable electricity, followed by biomass. ... Today, Copenhagen puts only 3 percent of its waste into landfills and incinerates 39 percent to generate electricity for thousands of households.”
—The Copenhagen That Matters
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An interesting counterpoint to some of Gladwell’s theories in Tipping Point. (oups, article is old and book even older)
Accountability Partners and Costructuring
I just read about the concept of an accountability partner where two people pair up to help each other “stay on track toward reaching your goals and creating a life and business by design rather than default”. They meet every couple of weeks and help each other with their business and life objectives.
A few months back Tony started CoStructure and posted about Pair Structuring which is similar to an accountability partner but with calls every day to set goals and help each other achieve them daily. Tony started New Work City, a coworking space, and I see this as another way to get some job like structure in a more interesting and freelancer friendly way.
I think there is some Tony Robbinsish wording in the first and the second might be a bit intense but I can see some interesting directions and ideas in both.
Questions: Anyone doing something like either of those? Arguments for? Against? Suggestions?
Experimental Jetset on Union Editions
Fantastic interview with Experimental Jetset. Focuses on design studios and the design industry but loads of good stuff for anyone running or planning to start any kind of creative business. Also some interesting opinions about larger agencies and client work which applies to web developement in much the same way.
Talking about bands, when it really comes down to it, we think that it is ultimately the band model, and not so much the studio model, that really inspires us. A band is such a perfect socio-economical unit. Large enough to have the benefit of shared responsibilities, and small enough for every member not to be alienated from the end product. We sometimes think every human activity should be organized according to this model. Society should be divided in small units, each unit a platform of human creativity, be it baking bread, making music, writing books or curing people.
(emphasis mine, same for other quotes)
We never really understood the point of expanding. As we see it, the reason we exist as a studio is because we have a singular aesthetic/conceptual vision, a very specific language we speak. If we employed people this would mean we had to force this vision upon them, that we had to oblige people to speak our language; we would certainly not want to do that. There’s already too much pressure in the world as it is now; we don’t want to add to this whole system of stress and alienation.
...
We get offered more assignments than we can handle. We simply don’t see that as a problem; we’re not megalomaniacs, we don’t have to design everything. If a client offers us an assignment while we’re busy working on something else, we simply try to direct this client to another small, independent studio. Ultimately, this whole model, of all assignments being done by a lot of different small graphic design studios, is much more interesting than the model of all assignments being done by a few large agencies. If we see two posters in the streets, we would prefer them to be designed by two different small design studios, instead of one large agency. It’s as simple as that.
The reason why it all became so complicated is because there now exists this whole layer of marketing and communication people who are more or less creating work just to keep themselves busy. So instead of efficiently designing good-quality printed matter, you are now wasting days discussing the order in which the sponsor logos on the poster should appear. That is indeed a shame. But the solution to this should not be the design studio growing, but rather this whole marketing sphere shrinking.
Mag+
Gooooorgeous demo vidéo for the Mag+ concept. Lots of great interface stuff, great video explanation and I love the “touch table” they use for their explanations.
Also see some more details on the BERG blog.
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Consider this announcement side by side with the WordPress announcement this weekend that WordPress blogs can now be posted to and read from Twitter clients, the rumor today that Facebook is experimenting with its own URL shortener, this afternoon’s announcement that the ability to expose your geographic location is now live in Google Toolbar and now longer a Labs product and last week’s go-live of real-time search on Google. All of this combined says one thing to us: the web is getting a whole lot faster and much more free of friction, quickly.
—Google, Twitter, WordPress & Facebook: Publish/Subscribe Matrix Could Explode Into Glass-Smooth Platform
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The gang at CloudRaker have come up with an awesome “Christmas card” by holding and producing cloudkitchen, they organized and self catored a Christmas dinner and made a gorgeous book out of the whole process. Well done!
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In an article published in December’s Harvard Business Review the researchers identified five skills that separate the blue-sky innovators from the rest—skills they labeled associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering.
—Learn the five secrets of innovation
Fonctionnement en temps enneigé, rappel annuel
Tout ça me semble évident mais comme plusieurs perdent la tête quand il neige, petit rappel.
Si vous conduisez une voiture
- Installez vos pneus d’hiver avant la première neige. *
- Déneigez votre voiture et dégivrez les fenêtres avant de partir.
- Conduisez prudemment mais quand même avec une vitesse supérieur à une personne à pied.
- Accélérez tranquillement, le départ dragster n’est pas recommandé sur neige.
- Le fait de faire des “byebye” par la fenêtre pour confirmer avoir vu le piéton ou l’autre voiture ne donne pas la permission de passer sur la rouge ou ignorer le passage piéton.
Si vous êtes à pied
- Choisissez un côté du trottoir. (Le milieu n’est pas un côté)
- Si vous êtes deux de large, soyez conscient de ceux qui vous suivent et restez prêt à laisser passer au besoin.
- Le comportement en 2, assez étrangement, s’applique aussi si les gens arrivent de face.
- Si vous poussez un méga landau d’hiver ou tirez un traîneau quelconque :
Voir comportement en 2. - Si vous portez un capuchon, rappelez-vous l’autruche; le fait que vous ne voyez pas quelqu’un ou quelque choses ne signifie pas que ça n’existe pas :
Voir comportement en 2.
* Si la première neige est le 9 décembre et que vous n’avez toujours pas de pneus d’hiver, remettez vos clés et permis de conduire au membre de famille le/la plus proche.
